Keep your foot in the door.

I have been working with our framing contractor this week trying to get things finished up at the house we are building. It's a fun process building a home and seeing everything come together, but I think its important to keep tabs on whats going on. Sometimes, someone elses interpretation of how things should be determines the outcome of a homeplan, rather than the intentions of the home owner or designer. Fortunately, we've been working with a pretty good framing contractor that is happy to build things as we want them, yet makes suggestions on things that will and won't work. Maybe one of these days I'll post a picture of the home. Its been a struggle getting the roof completed as the truss company built a girder truss incorrectly, so they had to come back out and replace it. Then the framing contractor mistakenly built the gable over the front porch about 2 1/2 feet too wide so that it is not centered over the porch, so he now has to tear it apart and rebuild it. Building a home requires a lot of give and take from several parties, or it can be a miserable experience. There are a few things on the house that are not exactly as I had designed them, but because I didn't explain well enough how I wanted them-and its already built- I'm going to live with them. The same goes for some of the contractors. They need to be willing to admit when they did something wrong and be willing to rebuild to make things right. It isn;t always the cheapest guy that is best. I think in many circumstances its worth paying a little more if you can get a good, honest guy to work with. Not only will you be happier, but your homeplan will turn out better because you are working with people who care about the outcome of the project.